Posts tagged ‘Algeta’

There is a lot of focus at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) here in Washington DC on metastatic castrate resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC), and the recently FDA approved adrenal steroid inhibitor, abiraterone acetate (Zytiga®).

Drugs in development that target the androgen receptor, such as MDV3100, are also generating a lot of interest from urologists.

However, Oliver Sartor (Tulane) in the Saturday morning satellite symposia that I attended, focused on emerging therapies in CRPC, beyond the androgen axis. His hypothesis:

“Cancers are devious and some of the mechanisms of AR activation appear to be ligand-independent and resistant to all current androgen-axis targeted therapies.”

What this means is that focusing on adrenal steroid inhibition or blocking the androgen receptor may not be sufficient to prevent disease progression. If we are looking for a Prostate Cancer cure, then will it take multiple drugs, including those that target various stromal sites? That is the intriguing question that Sartor raised.

Indeed, if there is one take home from this meeting, it is that the “desert” of prostate cancer therapies has now blossomed into a multiplicity of potential new therapies and development, which will mean that urologists and oncologists will soon be spoilt for choice as abiraterone and MDV3100 are not the end of the story.

Sartor highlighted some interesting ones on the horizon to watch out for:

Alpharadin: This is a bone targeted therapy that uses radioactive Radium 223 to kill cancer cells. It is being developed by Norwegian company, Algeta in partnership with Bayer Schering Pharma AG. The 900 patient phase III trial completed accrual earlier this year in Jan 2011. Phase II data was published in the Lancet in 2007 by Nilsson et al. Data from alpharadin will be “coming soon” according to Sartor.

Data from a phase 2 study of XL-184 in castrate resistance patients was presented last year at the EORTC-AACR-NCI Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Berlin by David Smith et al (Abstract 406).

Both XL-184 and alpharadin would be potential competitors to Amgen’s denosumab (Xgeva®).

Other new products in development “Beyond the Androgen Axis” that Dr. Sartor mentioned included Prostvac-VF, BPX-101 and ipilimumab. A phase III trial of ipilimumab, both pre- and post- docetaxel is now underway in mCRPC. A phase III trial of Prostvac-VF will start later this year with 1200 patients in a placebo controlled study with minimally symptomatic, castration-resistant metastatic prostate cancer patients.

Over the next few years a lot of data may emerge on exciting new treatment options. Coupled with the basic research that is going on, tremendous progress in the treatment of Prostate Cancer is already taking place.

According to Sartor “multiple drugs will be necessary to cure mCRPC and that is our greatest challenge today.” Major progress is now being made towards this.